So, I am really unforgivably late in posting this, but I am doing a thing. It’s kind of hard to explain so I’m going to give you a lot of links.

The event is called Fourplay. It’s basically four episodes in a relationship from meeting to marriage. It takes place at Salt Tasting Room in Gastown. I play one half of the couple in question. Okay, maybe that wasn’t so hard to explain. If you go, you get food, you get to keep your cell phone turned on, and there’s always some other entertainment. Last week we had a lovely musician, next week a magician, the third week some (ahem) burlesque and the fourth, a brass band.

The first night was great fun if the faces of the audience were any indication, (and believe me, I was right up close to see ’em). As a performer, I have to say, it is one wild ride.

Alexis is delighted to be honking her way through Tentative Equinox’s inaugural production! She was last seen in the United Players’ production of “Waste”, also appearing in “The Circle” (UP), “Speed-the-Plow” (Terminal Productions), “Enchanted April” (Metro Theatre), and award-winning plays “Seasons” (Half-Stratford Players), “Dylan” (Presentation House), and “Proof” (Surrey Little Theatre). Television appearances include guest spots on Stargate: Atlantis and The L Word. Warm appreciation and gratitude to Andrew, Christina, Tara, and the phenomenal cast of this terrific show, each of whom contains multitudes.

Anäis West–Oracle/Fate, Hazel

Anais is thrilled to be “roving” about in a site-specific Fringe show! Previous acting credits include “Jean” in August: Osage County (Arts Club), “Jackie” in Adult Content (Enemies of the Stage), Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (Kits Studio) and “Katherine” in The Taming of The Shrew (Carousel’s TSP). Sound design credits include Carousel’s recent production of Julius Caesar. She has also dabbled in playwrighting, participating for two years in the Arts Club’s LEAP Playwriting Intensive. Upcoming shows include Undead Double Feature for Enemies of the Stage. Anais will be attending theatre school at Studio 58 in January.

Andrew David Long–Director

Andrew David Long is an actor, writer, and director, who also moonlights as an arts administrator (currently with the Richmond Arts Centre) and film programmer. After a 5 year stint working at the Canadian Film Centre and a contract on the Olympics, Andrew sought a return to theatre and found one via the inaugural Arts Club Actors Intensive. While he is excited to help bring ROVE to fruition, he is still wondering how he wandered into the Granville Island Market for pasta and emerged with a 17-actor Fringe show.

Andy Yu–Whale King/Fisherman, Newlywed, Guardian

A 23-year-old (will be 24 after the Sept 12th show!) western-culture-assimilated Asian male capable of portraying western and eastern characteristics. Deeply fascinated by the very familiar yet ecstatically intriguing realm of performing arts, Andy has recently trod into the industry of film as well within our scenically endowed city of Vancouver. Highlight roles of his life (so far): catatonic child struggling with abusive memories & animalistic alien purely driven by its insatiable sadistic rabid nature. Hobbies: heartlessly toying with his own emotions. Principles in Life: “I’m spreading the joy… whether they like it or not…”, ”Meh…sure why not.”

Michael Cheng found his passion in acting since he was 15 years old. It has shaped his awareness of human interaction and how people perceive him through subtle body language and non-verbal cues. Dedicated in whatever he puts his mind to and rising to the challenge, Michael appreciates the journey. Commitment is the by-product of his burning passion. After acquiring the discipline to persevere, he decided to transition into Film and TV. Always being proactive in his everyday choices has fuelled his passion and drive to succeed. Finding his niche outlet along with running, acting has unlocked his hidden potential.

Brian Knox McGugan–Ron

Brian Knox McGugan apprenticed at the Citadel theatre in Edmonton, and in 1987 graduated from the U of A BFA (acting) program. He continues his exploration in theatre, music and film, also appearing with the musical duo, “A Gay and a Girl”. He starred in and directed the short film Motifs and Repetitions, and recently worked with Seven Tyrants in A Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht.. Performance with a deeper sense of purpose and community resonates strongly, and he is very excited to be a part of Rove. For more about Brian, please visit: www.McGoog.com.

Carly Fawcett–Wild Canada Goose

Born in Vancouver and raised in Kelowna, Carly moved back to the coast two years ago to pursue her dreams of becoming a performer. Acting, however, was not on the list, until she landed in Michele Lonesdale Smith’s scene study class in the fall of 2010. Having not acted since she was a kid, she realized what her true passion was, and fell in love with it. Since then she has studied with Nathalie Therriault, Ben Ratner and June B. Wilde. This is her first role in a production since childhood.

Christina Wells Campbell–Eva, Writer

What a wild ride this has been. Who knew back in February, when this opportunity first presented itself, I would find myself 7 months later surrounded by 16.5 other actors and 3 collaborators, doing spool knitting and reviewing the various ways that geese communicate, while loading my car (otherwise known as the prop-mobile) with props like a giant afghan, cowboy boots and a crown. In recent memory I directed a Jersey Shore spin on The Gondoliers for the Fraser Valley Gilbert and Sullivan Society. I played the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe and Mad Margaret in Ruddigore. I also played Malcom in MacBeth and the Evil Dr. Sedgewick in It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman. I am a 2-time survivor of the Arts Club Actor’s Intensive and feel it is now necessary to warn all future scene partners (hello Andrew David Long and Corey Payette) that being my scene partner may open up a whole other can of worms for you.

Colleen Costello–Oracle/Fate, Rusty Point Rover, Newlywed

Colleen Costello has been involved in music her entire life (starting with church choir), playing and recording original music for the public since 1996, and touring Canada with bands since 1999. In 1997, Colleen was introduced to interactive puppet theatre working with Crispy Salamander Theatre Co. in Victoria. In 2003 she branched out into adapting music for the theatre environment, notably sound design for Castlemoon Theatre (2003-2009), and percussion for teen theatre camp via Carousel Players in Ontario. Promoting a CD led to designing music for the soundtrack Falling for Caroline (2009) an award winning short film by Christine Chew. Theatre, music, painting, dance…. performing is an expression of experience and she does not discriminate by media. http://www.colleencostello.com/

Corey Payette–Choral Music Composer

THEATRE: Upcoming La Cage Aux Folles (Playhouse), Beyond Eden (Playhouse/Theatre Calgary), Glorious! (Theatre by the Bay), Canadian Premiere of Jerry Springer – The Opera, dir. Richard Ouzounian (Hart House Theatre) FILM/TELEVISION: Make me Stronger (Official Selection for the SlamDance Film Festival), The Great Fear. OF INTEREST: Corey is a graduate of York University in Toronto and has performed at the National Arts Centre, The Canadian Senate for Parliament, and on CBC Television. Corey was the resident Musical Director for the Upper Canada Repertory Company since 2007-2009, has released a solo CD “Broken Vow“(Indigo Records), and is currently writing his second original musical to be workshopped at the Playhouse in October www.coreypayette.com.

Corina Akeson–Mutha Goose, Crazy Homeless Woman

Corina speculates she was a cat in a former life, explaining why so much of her performance life is spent depicting various feline desired delicacies. Favourite Karmic penances & other projects include: Hamlet (Project X), A Moon for the Misbegotten (United Players, JAC), Laundry & Bourbon (Squire John’s Playhouse – Equity Co-op), Silverwing (Carousel Theatre), Chickens (Pacific Theatre), The Mousetrap (Arts Club Theatre Company) & Cabaret (Studio 58). Corina is also the performer of all the voices on the Fun with Composers Classical Music Education CD’s, a Carpenter and Mom to baby Avery – to whom she says, “A Cow says Moo, but Mommy says: Honk-honk, Cluck-cluck, Hoo-hoo, Screetch… & sometimes, if she’s very lucky, Baa-baa-Woof-Woof.” Special thanks to Jeff for making this foray possible.

Diana (Dice) Squires–Tour Guide, Rusty Point Rover, Choir Tamer

Recent acting credits: Macbeth (The Shakespeare Centre), Godspell (Pacific Theatre), The Laundromat (Scarlet Satin), Burn This (Beaumont Stage), Under the Hawthorn Tree and The Museum Project (Havana Theatre). Also a director, producer, playwright, and shameless workaholic, Dice is Artistic Director of Scarlet Satin Productions, having most recently produced the site-specific summer sensation Party This Weekend. When not creating theatre herself Dice works professionally in arts marketing and communications, including the role of Publicist for SAMC Theatre at her alma mater, Trinity Western University.

Jenn is grateful to have been invited to join this lovely group of rovers. This has been a wonderful experience roaming the island with them in the daytime, in the nighttime, through goose poop and all. Thanks everyone!

Marcela Caceres–Oracle/Fate, Lea, Mother, Guardian

Marcela Caceres is thrilled to be doing another outdoor roving show. The last time she got to lead an audience through a fantastical world was in the SFU gardens on Burnaby Mountain in her production
of “The Ferine Garden” (2009). Recently graduated with her BFA in Theatre Performance, it has been a pleasure bringing her musical and physical training to this project. Favourite credits include “Mixie and the Halfbreeds” (Neworld Theatre, 2009), “Machinal” (SFU, 2010), and “Mobilis in Mobili” (rice&beans theatre, 2011). She looks forward to enjoying her days on Granville Island with new eyes after “ROVE” must come to a close.

Rebecca Walters–Fäel

Rebecca has recently returned from Washington DC, where she got her MFA from the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University. Recent favourite roles include The Bawd in “Pericles”, Maquarelle in “The Malcontent” and Marie in “My Comic Valentine, Vol 2”. She is excited to be back at the Fringe, and to be working with such a fun and committed group of theatre creators!

Troy is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting program, as well as RDC’s Theatre Studies
Program. Theatre credits include Comfort (Rogue Insomniacs) Spokesong (Theatre Prospero), Faustmachine (Walking Fish Festival), King John (7 Tyrants), The Verona Project (Stone’s
Throw / Pacific Theatre), Supermarket Scuffle (Binky Productions), Moon for the Misbegotten (United Players) and Coriolanus (Coriolanus Co-op). Film and television credits include Deranged, Helix, 668 and Supernatural. He is also the Founder and Artistic Producer of the Rogue Insomniacs Theatre Collective.

Veronique West–Hazel

Veronique is delighted to be taking part in a wild and unique show like Rove at the 2011 Vancouver Fringe. Some of her recent theatre credits include The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth with Carousel Theatre’s Teen Shakespeare Program. She also recently completed the Arts Club’s LEAP Playwrighting Intensive for Teens, and is currently an Arts undergraduate student at UBC, planning to major in creative writing. She would like to thank Andrew and the cast for their support and insight, and for making her journey into the underworld a truly inspiring one.

Zachary Protz–Miss Information, Fortune Hunter, Guardian

Zachy was born in September 1994 and enjoys acting, reading, watching movies and making up stories. Zach took acting at the Gateway Theatre in his youthier youth, but it wasn’t until doing a Shakespeare workshop with Mike Stack in his slightly less youthy youth that his love of acting began to flourish. He returned to Gateway Theatre where he has learned and performed for the past four years under the tutelage of Joshua Reynolds, Natasha Nadir, Jack Patterson, Sasa Brown, Ruth Brown, Ruth McIntosh, Beverly Sauve, and Eileen Barrett. This is Zach’s first time performing for an audience not consisting of his friend’s parents and he looks forward to it greatly.

For more information about ROVE: The Legend of Rusty Point, please click HERE.

I’m a little bit shocked that the last time I wrote here was my birthday–almost 6 months ago. Wow. So much has happened since then. I guess I should do a mini-catch-up.

In chronological order:

I directed the Fraser Valley Gilbert and Sullivan’s production of The Gondoliers. It was great fun, a great cast, great voices. I took a Jersey Shore spin on it which entertained me to no end. It’s been a while since I directed and I’m glad to be bringing that skill back to the forefront.

I took the Actor’s Intensive at the Arts Club again (2nd year! — Woot!). A lovely group of people. Much intensity. I loved it just as much this year as last.

I’ve been working on a site specific theatre piece since April. It’s the inaugural year of a partnership between the Only Animal Theatre Company and the Vancouver Fringe Festival to mentor a bunch of artists in the development of site specific theatre. Tentative Equinox has been one of those companies. You can find out all about our piece called ROVE: The Legend of Rusty Point by clicking the tab at the top, or simply clicking here.

My Dad died. Exactly 9 months to the day after my Mom died, my Dad passed away from metastasized cancer of the kidney collection ducts–a cancer so rare that the urological oncologist had seen only one other case in her career. All the other doctors had seen none. At the end of the school year in June he was fine. In mid-July one eye stopped tracking. He was admitted to hospital towards the end of July due to acute leg pain and blood clotting problems. He died just before school went back in. I have much more to say and process and mourn about this dual loss, but that will come in time.

It’s interesting to me (although ‘interesting‘ is a wholly inadequate word) that ROVE has a dual track storyline where you, as the audience, can follow either the sister of light or the sister of shadow and my life feels very much like that right now–dual tracked. Tomorrow, my father’s funeral is at 11am, and ROVE opens at 7:15pm. Shadow and Light.

Instead of a tentative equinox, I’m having an intense equinox. More of a collision of light and dark rather than a balance.

A perfect day for a fresh start. I have so much that I’ve been thinking about. So much that I’m involved in. It’s exciting. And I want to let you know all about it. But for now, let’s just take a breath and begin.

A new year. Spring is at least a little in the air. The fields are beginning to unfallow (defallow?). The Vernal Equinox is nigh.

I have wishes, intentions, hopes for this new year, and I’m dying to share them with you, but they feel like like blowing out the candles on my cake–these wishes are to be kept secret. A conspiracy betweeen all the inner mes.

Suffice to say for our purposes that they involve doorways and the going through of them. Crossing thresholds. Closing the doors behind me. And that means a letting go too. A letting go of identity.

This is what I mean as just one example. For me, one of the hardest parts of changing how I eat has been how I identify the Eating Christina. It’s not letting go of the actual coffee with cream, it’s letting go of the me that says “I am a coffee drinker.”

There will be more of that this year as I cross through these doorways.

So, celebrate with me! On birthdays past I know I’ve had a tradition of limericks. (Feel free to go reviewthemhere). But this year, I feel I need the elegance of the haiku.

Hinges scream loudlyThe old door protests op’ningCross through anyway

I would love it if you would leave me a haiku on the theme of doorways and thresholds in the comments.

And hey, haikus don’t have to be serious. Here’s one that Shane Koyczan, the spoken word poet told at his concert. (He didn’t write it, but I can’t remember who he said had–it was created at some kind of Extreme Haiku competition — how awesome is that, that haikus have joined the ranks of extreme sports. I so want the blooper reel from that.)

WELCOME TO MY PRECARIOUSLY BALANCED UNIVERSE…

...in which I ask important questions like "If I'm the centre of the universe, why don't I get my way more often?" and "What if the laws of the universe are merely suggestions?" and of course the key questions, "Have you subscribed? How will I know you like me if you don't?"